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Army Inter-Regiment Novices Athletic Championship 2005
Artillery Regiment, Women's Corps 3 emerge champions
By M. Shamil Amit
The Sri Lanka Artillery Regiment with 183 points and the Sri Lanka Army Women's Corps 3 with 213 points emerged champions in the men's and women's category at the two day Inter-Regiment Novices Athletics Championship concluded at the Sugathadasa Stadium yesterday. Taking second and third places in the men's category were the Light Infantry regiment with 127 and the Service Corps with 103 points respectively while the Women's Corps 2 with 147 and the Women's Corps 1 with 104 points finished second and third in the women's category.

The championship involved 19 regiments comprising of 424 athletes in the men's category five regiments comprising of over 75 athletes in the women's category. In the two days as much as eight records were broken, three on the first day and the rest yesterday.

The three records established on the first day were two in the track events and one in the field. The first record to be broken was in the men's high jump where A.P.L. Amarasinghe of the Light Infantry regiment went over a height of 1.90 metres to better the old record of 1.85 set in 2002. The second record to be set was in the 4 x 100 relay by the athletes from the champion Artillery regiment sprinted their way with a timing of 42.3 seconds eclipsing the time of 43.2.

The last record of the opening day was in the men's 200 metres where H.A.I.T. Fernando also of the Artillery regiment did a timing of 22.00 seconds to eclipse the record of 22.5 seconds. The race was won by by H.A.I.D. Hettiarachchi of the General Service Corps with a timing of 21.9 seconds but he was disqualified for having participated in an inter-provincial meet earlier, athletes participating in these meets are not allowed to enter the fray.

The records set on the second day were in the men's 5000 meters by I.M,E. Tennekoon of the Service Corps, men's pole vault by A.A.L.N. Wickaramasinghe of the General Service Corps, men's 4 x 200 and 4 x 400 both by the champion Artillery regiment and the women's shot putt by I.H.U. Udayalatha of the Army 2 Women's Corps. Gunner W.J.I. Fernando of the champion Artillery regiment was adjudged the most outstanding athlete in the men's category while A. Pushpalatha of the Army Women's Corps 1 regiment was adjudged the most outstanding women's athlete.

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